Exercise apparatus in interactive communication with medical service platform

ABSTRACT

An exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform serves to convert movements of the exercise apparatus into accessible exercise data and transmit the exercise data and data about a medical-care-recipient&#39;s ID to the medical service platform.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The present invention relates to an exercise apparatus that enable an interactive communication between a medical-care recipient and a medical-service provider. More particularly, the exercise apparatus of the present invention serves to transmit exercise data it acquires to a medical service platform of a medical-service provider and receive suggestion data from the medical service platform.

2. Description of Related Art

In recent years, more and more researches have been made on remote home-care services in the attempt to provide medical-care recipients with more convenient and effective services for health management and health care by integrating information technology and communication technology. In Europe, North America, and Japan, there are many remote home-care systems becoming commercially available. Theses remote home-care systems are usually designed for chronic patients and serve to perform long-term physiology monitoring and transmit signals acquired in the monitoring to central databases through the Internet for storage and management so as to be provided later as bases for medical-service-providers' diagnosis.

Presently, an interactive physiology detecting system has been introduced to acquire a medical-care recipient's particular physiological signals and transmit the physiological signals as well as the medical-care recipient's identification (ID) data to a medical service platform so that a medical-service-provider related to the medical service platform can be updated with the medical-care recipient's latest health conditions. While the foregoing system helps for achieving short-range goals of remote home-care services, namely “controlling and maintaining” medical-care recipients' “physical health” by medical means, it unfortunately provides no approach to long-range goals of remote home-care services, namely “maintaining” and “improving” medical-care recipients'“physical and mental health”.

A fact has been proven by medical researches that appropriate and effective active exercise is constructive to disease recovery, and maintenance as well as promotion of physical and mental health. However, as for home-care applications, information about medical-care recipients' exercise conditions is still not accessible. Hence, a need exists for an active means to acquire information about medical-care recipients' exercise conditions and even to urge medical-care recipients to finish certain exercise loads, thereby achieving the ends of “maintaining” and “improving” medical-care recipients' physical and mental health.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One objective of the present invention is to propose an exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform, wherein the exercise apparatus is capable of recording exercise data about items, durations, speeds, load levels, exercise items, energy expenditure of a medical-care recipient, and transmitting the recorded exercise data and the medical-care recipient's identification data to the medical service platform related to a medical-service provider so that medical staff of the medical-service provider are informed of the medical-care recipient's latest exercise states. The exercise apparatus is also capable of receiving suggestion data from the medical-service provide thought the medical service platform.

Another objective of the present invention is to propose an exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform, wherein while the exercise apparatus is communicated with the medical service platform, the medical service platform is enabled to acquire exercise data of a medical-care recipient from the exercise apparatus and the medical-care recipient's identification data, and timely issue suggestions for improving or maintaining the medical-care recipient's health in a form of a text message for the medical-care recipient to read, so that a medical-service provider can provide the medical-care recipient with updated professional suggestions and assistance.

Another objective of the present invention is to propose an exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform, wherein when the exercise apparatus is applied to remote home-care, it is possible to actively acquire a medical-care recipient's exercise state and even to urge the medical-care recipient to fulfill a predetermined exercise load, so as to “maintain” and “improve” the medical-care recipient's physical and mental health.

To achieve these and other objectives of the present invention, the exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform comprises the exercise apparatus, a central control system, settled in the exercise apparatus for dominating operations of software and hardware of the exercise apparatus, data conversion unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to convert movements of the hardware of the exercise apparatus into storable and transmittable exercise data, an exercise data storage unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to store the exercise data, ID data unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to acquire and store identification data of at least one medical-care recipient, a physiological data unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to acquire and store physiological data of at least one medical-care recipient, and a communication unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to transmit the identification data, exercise data and physiological data to an external medical service platform.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of hard ware of the subject matter of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 1, an exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform according to the present invention comprises the exercise apparatus 40, a central control system 42, a data conversion unit 41, an exercise data storage unit 10, an ID data unit 30, a physiological data unit 33, an external data input unit 37, an alarm unit 36, a communication unit 31, and a suggestion receiver unit 35.

The exercise apparatus 40 is substantially an exercise device for a medical-care recipient to actively operate, such as a spinning bike. Alternatively, the exercise apparatus 40 may be an exercise device for a medical-care recipient to take passive exercise, such as a gymnastic bicycle that mechanically drives a medical-care recipient's legs to perform reciprocal movements. The exercise apparatus 40 also may include a pedometer that counts each step a person takes or a video game console that is connected with a multimedia electronic device and trains players' limbs, such as Wii, and Wii Fit.

The central control system 42 is settled in the exercise apparatus 40 for dominating operations of software and hardware of the exercise apparatus 40.

The data conversion unit 41 is coupled with the central control system 42 and utilized microprocessors as well as programs to convert movements of the hardware of the exercise apparatus 40 into storable and transmittable exercise data. The exercise data may be including, but not limited to, information of exercise items, exercise durations, exercise speeds, exercise distances or accumulative loads, etc.

The exercise data storage unit 10 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serves to store the aforementioned exercise data. The exercise data storage unit 10 may comprise built-in recording media (such as hard discs and memories), or external recording media (such as USB-interface flash memories).

The ID data unit 30 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serves to acquire and store identification data of at least one medical-care recipient. The identification data may be comprising, but not limited to, the medical-care recipient's name, gender and date of birth.

The physiological data unit 33 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serving to acquire and store physiological data of at least one medical-care recipient. The physiological data may contain the medical-care recipient's heartbeat rate of the time the medical-care recipient operates the exercise apparatus 40. The physiological data may also contain measuring results of a portable physiology-monitoring device, such as the medical-care recipient's body height, body weight, BMI, blood pressure value, and blood sugar value. The physiological data may further contain at least one disease information.

The external data input unit 37 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serves to receive data from an external data supply unit 50. The external data supply unit 50 may be any of a variety of media capable of data storage, such as computers, flash memory sticks and portable physiology monitoring devices. The central control system 42 distributes the data to the ID data unit 30 and the physiological data unit according to formats of the data provided by the external data supply unit 50.

The alarm unit 36 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serves to monitor the medical-care recipient's heartbeat rate of the time the medical-care recipient operates the exercise apparatus 40 and give an alarm message when the heartbeat rate goes beyond a predetermined range so as to warn the medical-care recipient.

The communication unit 31 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serves to transmit the above-mentioned ID data, exercise data and physiological data to an external medical service platform 32 through a known wired or wireless communication system or network system.

The suggestion receiver unit 35 is coupled with the central control system 42 and serves to receive a text message from the medical service platform 32 through the communication unit 31 and display the text message in a screen 11 provided on the exercise apparatus 40. The text message refers to suggestions from computers or staff of the medical service platform 32 for improving or maintaining the medical-care recipient's health.

In the following description, a spinning bike is taken as an example to illustrate the exercise apparatus of the present invention. The spinning bike comprises the exercise data storage unit 10, the screen 11, the ID data unit 30, the communication unit 31, the physiological data unit 33, the suggestion receiver unit 35, the alarm unit 36, the external data input unit 37, the data conversion unit 41, the central control system 42 and the external data supply unit 50.

Computers, flash memory sticks, and portable physiology monitoring device may provide a medical-care recipient's identification data (name, gender and age), physiological data (body height, body weight, BMI, blood pressure value, blood sugar value and disease information) to the ID data unit 30 and physiological data unit 33 through the central control system 42 and external data input unit 37 for the ID data unit 30 and physiological data unit 33 to store the data.

When the medical-care recipient uses the spinning bike to take exercise, the central control system 42 and data conversion unit 41 convert rotational movement of a tread track of the spinning bike into storable and transmittable exercise data (exercise items, exercise durations, exercise speeds, exercise distances or accumulative loads) and the central control system 42 can further use the data (body height, body weight) stored in the physiological data unit 33 as bases to calculate energy the medical-care recipient expends on the present exercise. The exercise data and energy expenditure are stored in the exercise data storage unit 10.

The communication unit 31 transmits the exercise data recorded in the exercise data storage unit 10, the identification data recorded in the ID data unit 30, and the physiological data recorded in the physiological data unit 33 to the medical service platform 32.

The medical service platform 32 receives and stores the physiological data, identification data, and exercise data so that computers or staff thereof are enabled to access and analyze the data and then give out a suggestion for improving or maintaining the medical-care recipient's health in a form of a text message or a voice message.

The communication unit 31 and the suggestion receiver unit 35 then serve to receive and store the suggestion from the medical service platform 32 for the medical-care recipient's reference.

Moreover, the spinning bike is equipped with a heartbeat monitor that keeps monitoring the medical-care recipient's real-time heartbeat rate during the medical-care recipient's exercise on the spinning bike. When the detected heartbeat rate goes beyond a preset threshold range, the alarm unit 36 gives out an alarm to warn the medical-care recipient.

The exercise data related to the spinning bike may be also stored in some external record media such as USB-interface flash memory sticks so that the exercise data can be transmitted to other computers or electronic storage devices.

The present invention proposes an exercise apparatus in interactive communication with a medical service platform serves and is applicable to a remote home-care application. The present invention implements an active means to acquire medical-care recipients' exercise states and is even capable of urging the medical-care recipients to fulfill predetermined exercise load, thereby “maintaining” and “improving” the medical-care recipients' physical and mental health.

Although the particular embodiment of the invention has been described in detail for purposes of illustration, it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that numerous variations will be possible to the disclosed embodiment without going outside the scope of the invention as disclosed in the claims. 

1. An exercise apparatus in an interactive communication with a medical service platform, comprising: the exercise apparatus; a central control system, settled in the exercise apparatus for dominating operations of software and hardware of the exercise apparatus; a data conversion unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to convert movements of the hardware of the exercise apparatus into storable and transmittable exercise data; an exercise data storage unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to store the exercise data; an ID data unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to acquire and store identification data of at least one medical-care recipient; a physiological data unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to acquire and store physiological data of at least one medical-care recipient; and a communication unit, coupled with the central control system and serving to transmit the identification data, exercise data and physiological data to an external medical service platform.
 2. The exercise apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the exercise apparatus allows the medical-care recipient to actively operate thereby taking exercise.
 3. The exercise apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the exercise data storage unit comprises a built-in record medium settled in the exercise apparatus.
 4. The exercise apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the exercise data storage unit comprises an external record medium.
 5. The exercise apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising an external data input unit that is coupled with the central control system for receiving data from an external data supply unit.
 6. The exercise apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the external data supply unit is a portable physiology-monitoring device.
 7. The exercise apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a suggestion receiver unit that is coupled with the central control system for receiving suggestion data from the medical service platform through the communication unit. 